Federal funding for residential school survivor support program in Sipekne’katik announced

The announcement began with the honour song, as Sipekne'katik First Nation marked a moment Canada's Minister of Crown-Indigenous relations admitted was long overdue.

“It's important to mark these events with some level of humility and understanding,” said Marc Miller, “that I stand on behalf of an entity that was part and parcel along with religious institutions, with creating this system.”

Ottawa is giving $326,700 to the Shubenacadie Residential School Support Project for Sipekne'katik to continue the work the community has already started towards determining just what happened at the Maritime's only such institution.

The funding will allow for more fieldwork on the former grounds of the Shubenacadie residential school, looking for possible graves.

It will also be used to gather crucial information from survivors and commemorate them, along with the children who never came home.

“I want people to know that this residential school stuff is not hundreds of years ago,” said Sipekne'katik chief Mike Sack, “it's something that never should happen and never should have happened. “

After hundreds of graves were located at residential schools across the country last year, and the more recent apology from the Pope for the role of the Catholic Church in operating two-thirds of Canada’s residential institutions, the federal funding is meaningful for survivors like Dorene Bernard and her cousin Shirley Morris.

Bernard and Morris both attended Shubenacadie, along with many of their siblings.

Bernard has also been leading efforts in the community through her role as the coordinator of the IRS Legacy Project at the Mi’kmawey Debert Cultural Centre.

“It's exciting,” says Bernard, “we haven't had funding for programs since 2015, at a time when survivors were saying that their children needed something.”

“Because the trauma that we have is not going to be done in one generation or two, it's going into the future,” adds Morris.

The financial support is also encouraging for those in the next generation.

“My great-grandmother went (to school at Shubenacadie),” says Cruise Syliboy, “and even today, my family is still heavily impacted by it.”

“To be acknowledged by the government is really important because I feel like it's a step towards reconciliation,” adds Kassidy Augustine.